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1/13
Alphus Gibb lived by himself in a
house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a porch, a kitchen, and an antique
fireplace. When it was snowing, and it was always snowing, Alphus would put on
his thick burgundy robe with fur-lined hood and cuffs, and walk off the back
porch into the snow to feed the birds. He liked to pretend that he was Belle from Beauty and the Beast, his
favorite movie. He’d imagine that a fearsome, hairy but sweet monster was
gazing down at him, seeing his goodness and generosity to the light and happy
creatures and wondering how he would ever get the beast to fall in love with
him to break the spell and turn his kitchen appliances back into people.
Alphus
lived to feed the birds. He liked best to watch them run; they’d slim down
their feathers and straighten upright. The birds were quail, a whole cult of
them, living in the long-dead raspberry bushes. The old raspberry stems had
become a wooden lattice, hard and strong as any thatched Elizabethan roof or
Indian longhouse. Here the birds communed. Scampering in and out, they’d always
hit their head feather, the feathers bobbing and shrugging. Alphus thought they
looked like arrows saying, “You can find me here.” He thought about getting one
for himself, but he’d never be accepted into the quail cult, he thought. They
were too impressive. From time to time they decided to take great flights into
the air, up to seven or eight feet! No, he’d stay on the outside, feeding them,
pretending to be Belle.
Alphus
spent a lot of time with his mother. His mother spent most of her time being in
love with Jonny Kruszymkortcha, a Jewish Pole, or a Polish Jew, or a Jewish
Polish person, living in snow country America, who told everyone the news. Eleven
at night, five in the morning, he was on Masha’s flat screen, HD, really big
television. He’d sit behind his wide desk like a peppy particularly
consequential bartender. And did I mention he was handsome? At least to Masha.
She used to have a smaller TV. It was more normal, and it sat in its corner of
the room, more or less unimposing, humming always to commercials and sitcoms
and the odd storm warning. Then Masha, and perhaps Jonny himself, thought it
was time for the next step in their relationship. So now she owned the
Mongotron300 – 87 inches and she loved every one of them. She used to tell
Alphus how she was in love.
“What does
that mean?” He’d ask her.
Being in
love was being fixated on someone. Being interested in them, spending all your
time watching them. Saying romantic things and layering regular conversations
with the erotic. That’s what Masha would tell him, and she’d say how much it
hurt sometimes. The person you’re in love with can inflict pain with just a
twitch of an eyebrow. A small sigh in your company can tell you he might
secretly be thinking about something else, about someone else.
“Sometimes
when Jonny looks away from the teleprompt I just break into tears! I could kill
him during those times!”
Ah yes,
that was what being in love was all about.
Alphus
thought about being in love, but so far he had experienced none of the
symptoms. Alphus was not in love with Jonny Kruszymkortcha. His eyebrow antics
had never given Alphus so much as the hiccups.
As much as
Masha was for being in love she was, in no way, shape or form, in any year,
ever, in support of marriage. “Do not get married, Alphus.” She would say. “Can
you imagine what would have happened if I had married your father?” Alphus
could not imagine. Not about that.
Masha
figured marriage was too risky – fifty percent of marriages ended in divorce,
and the people who stayed married died. Divorce or death were not good options;
it wasn’t logical to get married. And Masha thought that if your actions
weren’t logical then you deserved whatever consequences you got. Hence, in her
mind, married people deserved to die. In fact, Masha rejoiced in the rising
divorce rate; it was driving the death-rate down. Alphus hated when she talked
about marriage.
It was
snowing, like always, and Alphus was outside in his robe feeding the birds and
thinking about Belle. He wondered if Belle got married. If she did, he wondered
if the birds got hungry and froze after she died. Poor Belle. Poor quails.
He looked
up from these musings to see the snow falling more heavily, in big chunks. A
gust of wind kicked the tops of the dunes into a white sheet. Alphus had to
shield his eyes. When he lowered his arm, his white fur cuffs even whiter for
the snow, he saw the most amazing sight that his eyes had yet beheld. A bird,
two or three times the size of the quail, was standing to the side of the yard.
Its feathers were bright shades of gold, red and purple. Its tail dusted the
ground with grace.
Alphus was
interested. Alphus was fixated. Alphus felt that if the lovely bird so much as
battered an eye in the wrong way, he would be in great pain. Alphus had read on
the Internet how pheasants exhibited strong sexual dimorphism; he thought that
sounded great. For that’s what this bird was, a pheasant. Alphus was in love.
He noticed
how the quails paid it very little attention. How could they just scuttle
around like that when Dionysus herself was among them! The pheasant was the
only thing in his world; he felt no cold, no hunger, no pangs of regret for
past wrongs, no fear for the future. He was only aware of the pheasant, the
great bird of bold colors.
He thought
to himself, a very honest thought that would only be appropriate in the
presence of his great love. He took that thought and decided to hide it deep in
his heart, so deep that his mother could not even find it if she looked. And
Alphus did not know; someday she might be inclined to look. In a small dear
voice, hard like a pebble cupped in the palm of his hand, in view of the
pheasant of his affection, he thought: Someday,
I would like to get married.
Next
In the first paragraph, you write "Bell" instead of "Belle".
ReplyDeleteCheers, good work so far. :)
Thank you! Will edit.
Delete